Melania Trump's popularity skyrocketing as haters flounder
Driven by blind rage over the failure of voters to elect Hillary Clinton, the left's establishment has targeted anyone related to Donald Trump (even his 10-year-old son, Barron) for abuse. It is one thing to fabricate videos to show his father Fred as a racist – after all, he's a dead white male and can't defend himself.
But in taking on Melania Trump for abuse, the left has committed a grave error. This will not end well for them. Carl Bernstein's son, who writes for the New York Times, has already suffered for accusing her of being a "hooker" at a public event and has apologized. Dan Savage, the hopeless hateful homosexual who claims to be an "anti-bullying" activist, has been particularly hateful in bullying her.
But the public is already catching on that she is nothing like the caricature the left has constructed. Kaitlan Collins reports in The Daily Caller:
According to the results of a new CNN/ORC poll, 52 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of the first lady, which is 16 percent higher than it was on the day that Donald Trump was sworn in, while 32 percent of voters view her unfavorably.
Her approval rating dipped down to 24 percent in February, but now that Melania has made several appearances with her husband and at the White House, it seems to be on the rise.
While Melania's approval is still far below that of most first ladies, the trend is what is important. The Trump-hating minority seems to be roughly 30% of the public. Melania may never win their approval, as long as they remain in thrall to the MSM. But the remaining 70% are hers for the persuading, and she is already on a trajectory that will take her most or all of the way there. There are several reasons – all of which guarantee that the haters will face more and more blowback.
1. To state the obvious, she is gorgeous. Better looking than Jackie Kennedy, in fact. Unless they are snooty, gorgeous females get a big break from the public.
2. Melania is an immigrant. She speaks English intelligently, but the Eastern European inflections remain in her speech pattern, and she speaks slowly, the way people do when they have learned a foreign language post-childhood. Not only does this insulate her from seeming to be arrogant, but it also belies the calumny that President Trump is "anti-immigrant" – a dastardly charge that deliberately conflates legal immigrants with illegals.
3. She shows every sign of being a devoted mother. While Jimmy Kimmel and other late-night comedians make jokes about the Trumps living apart until the school year is over, the plain fact is that her son's welfare is far more important to her than the glamor of White House life – or even, possibly, the wishes of her husband.
4. She is cosmopolitan and speaks five languages, and if she were married to a liberal politician, she would be the toast of D.C. society. She is all the things leftists consider themselves as exemplars of – the stuff that separates them from the basket of deplorables. And yet they make fun of these qualities in her. This can't last long.
5. Her native land of Slovenia is the best kept secret of Europe, a gem of a county. A friend married to a Slovenian lady characterizes it as "Switzerland without the attitude." It has mountains, charming architecture, and a rich history. The people are literate and productive and were by far the most highly economically developed part of the former Yugoslavia. When – inevitably – she and her husband make a state visit to Slovenia, she will introduce it to the American public, and they will like what they see. (Full disclosure: As a consultant, I have done some work for one of the largest companies in Slovenia, and I greatly enjoyed my interactions with their executives.) If you are old enough to remember Jackie Kennedy taking television viewers on a tour of the White House, you have a sense of the opportunities Melania has ahead of her.
The fashion community has been particularly nasty, with designers still announcing that they will not be providing clothing for the first lady. The latest came yesterday. Let them. They only deny themselves a platform for their output to be seen.
They should ask Nordstrom how boycotting a beautiful Trump lady works out.